The Society for Organizational Learning

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The Society for Organizational Learning

• Founded April 1997

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SoL

• A global, enabling network where dialogue,
  research, collaborative action, and learning can
  take place

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SoL Purposes
Who We Are Practitioners, Researchers, Capacity
Builders

• An intentional learning community composed of
  organizations, individuals, and local SoL
  communities around the world. We are a
  not-for-profit, member-governed corporation.
• SoL connects corporations and organizations,
  researchers and consultants to generate knowledge
  about and capacity for fundamental innovation and
  change through collaborative action inquiry
  projects

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SoL Goals

• More than simple collaboration -- we strive to
  develop the researcher, capacity builder and
  practitioner in each of us!
• As an action learning community, we generate real
  business and social system results
• new intellectual capital and
• on-going personal and professional networks
• Purpose discover (research), integrate (capacity
  development) and implement (practice)
  theories/practices of organizational learning for
  the interdependent development of people and
  their institutions and communities to
  continuously increase capacity to collectively
  realize our highest aspirations and productively
  resolve our differences

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It is through these goals

• that organizations are truly worthy of the
  commitment of their employees and communities

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The Dilemma

• Pressures created by issues tend to keep leaders
  in a continual doing rather than reflecting mode.
  
• Tools and methods and, as important, the quality
  of relationships and common concerns within the
  SoL community, can create unique opportunities
  for leaders to meet and genuinely think together,
  the real meaning of dialogue.
• Sustaining this opportunity may be vital in
  developing new capacities for shared
  understanding and coordinated action.

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Topics of Concern

• The social (and economic) divide
• The system seeing itself
• Redefining growth
• Variety and inclusiveness
• Attracting talented people and realizing their
  potential
• The role of the corporation

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The Social (and Economic) Divide

• Existence of an ever-widening gap between those
  participating in the increasingly interdependent
  global economy and those not, both between and
  within different countries
• Digital Divide" is one dimension of this.
• However, framing the problem this way invokes
  technological responses, not deeper inquiries
  into the forces behind and consequences of
  globalization

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The Social/Economic Divide - 2

• Anti-globalization movement is growing not
  because people lack access to the Internet but
  because they feel a profound sense of dislocation
  and threat.
• Moreover, collaborative inquiry possibilities are
  diminishing as fear and distrust grows.
• What are leading corporations doing today to
  address these issues, and how are they making it
  part of their business?

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The Social/Economic Divide - 3

• What are the ranges of innovations that must be
  considered for the future?
• in market growth
• human resources
• ownership and governance
• What new relationships are developing among
• corporations
• NGOs
• Local governments

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Mirroring - The System Seeing Itself

• Challenges for coordination and coherence in
  social systems, be they global corporations,
  industries, or still larger systems
• Organizations traditionally oscillate between
  decentralization when business is good
• Yielding lack of clarity, waste, unnecessary
  internal conflicts, confusion and frustration for
  customers, and inability to work productively for
  the common good, both the firm's and society's
• and centralization when it is not
• central control is inevitably limited in diverse,
  geographically distributed enterprises

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Mirroring -2

• Consider alternatives to central control in
  achieving high levels of coordinated action
• What sorts of capabilities, technologies, and
  infrastructures need to be developed to help
  people better see how local actions impact
  extended, interdependent systems that are
  invisible locally, as well as the overall
  performance of the enterprise?
• How do we balance autonomy with health of the
  whole

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Redefining growth

• Economic growth based on ever-increasing material
  use and discard is inconsistent with a finite
  world, and finite capacity to dissipate waste
• Business and financial models depend on growth
• if a company fails to grow in revenues and
  profits, it is out of the game and others who
  embrace growth will take its place
• Rethink bringing growth into harmony with the
  natural environment.
• Reconceive growth and success
• Base healthy economies on continuing increase in
  value created rather than on continuing increase
  in material throughput
• What are the implications of such a shift, for
  business, financial markets, customers, and
  investors?

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Variety and inclusiveness

• Develop inclusion as a core competence in
  increasingly multi-cultural and diverse
  organizations
• Organizations that learn to learn better across
  cultural, gender, and ethnic boundaries and learn
  to make differences in how people think and learn
  an asset rather than a liability will have unique
  advantages in today's world
• Corporations must reflect better the world's
  people in their composition

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Attracting talented people and realizing their
potential

• Develop commitment in a world of "free agents"
  and "volunteer" talent.
• The very concept of "employee" may be an
  Industrial Age notion that is becoming
  increasingly irrelevant and even
  counter-productive
• Organizational boundaries are more ambiguous as
  mergers, acquisitions, strategic alliances and
  diverse forms of partnership continually
  reconfigure businesses. This makes people's
  organizational affiliations also more ambiguous

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Attracting talented people and realizing their
potential -2

• Against this backdrop of flux and uncertainty
  rest unchanging personal desires for friendship
  and identity with meaningful work
• How can we rethink the equation for loyal and
  generative partnership between the individual and
  organization?

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The role of the corporation

• Extend the traditional role of the corporation,
  especially the global corporation, to be more
  commensurate with its impact
• If national governments are weakening in an era
  of growing globalization, will global
  corporations become more exposed?
• How do global corporations act responsibly in
  situations where the rule of law is deteriorating
  and economic power effectively supersedes
  political power?

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The role of the corporation -2

• What can be learned from efforts such as The UN's
  Global Compact about the feasibility and impact
  of initial moves in this direction?
• How can global corporations better understand
  what determines their "license to operate" and
  their "license to grow"?
• How can they use their visibility to be a more
  positive force in a complex world?

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The SoL Driving Force

• Peter Senge Founding Chair of the Council
• Thomas J. Cummings, Unilever, Rotterdam,
  Netherlands
• Gary Mayo, Visteon Corporation, Dearborn, MI
• Valerie Micklus, ATT, Bedminster, NJ
• Tony Reese, Harley Davidson Motor Company,
  Milwaukee, WI
• Jim Tebbe, Shell People Services, London, United
  Kingdom

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Primary Global Forum Team

• Australia
• Austria
• Denmark
• Finland
• France
• Germany
• USA

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Where SoL Happens

• SoL Peru SoL Poland So Scotland SoL
  Singapore SoL Spain SoL Sweden SoL Sweden-West
  SoL Tasmania SoL Thailand SoL Turkey SoL US
  Midwest SoL USWest SoL Venezuela SoL-UK
  (London) Sustainability Consortium Unilever
  Community Visteon Community World Bank
  Community Youth and Education Network

SoL China SoL Colombia SoL Denmark SoL Egypt
SoL Europe SoL Finland SoL France SoL Germany
SoL Hungary SoL India SoL Iran SoL Israel
SoL Japan SoL Malaysia SoL Mexico SoL
Netherlands SoL Norway SoL Oregon SoL
Palestine

• ATT Community DTE Energy Community FedEx
  Community Ford Community Founding SoL Fujitsu
  Community Global Leadership Initiative HP
  Community Harley-Davidson Community Intel
  Community Knowledge and Innovation Network NSA
  Community Petrotrin Community Public Sector
  Community Sanofi Community Saudi Aramco
  Community Shell Community SoL Asthma Fractal
  SoL Australia SoL Austria SoL Brazil SoL
  Chile-Santiago